A Republican congressman has called for a deadline to pull out US troops from Iraq, while other members of President George Bush's party have urged his administration to revamp Iraq policy. Republican Walter Jones, a North Carolina conservative, said on ABC's This Week on Sunday that he would offer legislation this week setting a timetable for the US withdrawal from Iraq. "I voted for the resolution to commit the troops, and I feel that we've done about as much as we can do," said Jones, who coined the phrase "freedom fries" to lash out at the French for opposing the Iraq invasion.
I was talking to somebody at work today about what kind of course the WoT was going to take. Our general concensus was pretty pessimistic. I think the national attention span's been overwhelmed by Ben and Jen, Britney's bosom, Michael Jackson, and a host of other frivolities du jour. Time's passed and the national revulsion at 9-11 was receded, such dead as were found long buried. Politix as usual has set in, first with the Dems adopting their now traditional antiwar stance, now with weak-kneed Publicans getting ready to move on to more pleasant subjects, like fund-raisers. There hasn't been another atrocity on U.S. soil, and not that many — save a few beheadings — effecting Americans. The pols are talking about shutting Guantanamo down because it offends people. Islam's still the Religion of Peace™, despite all evidence to the contrary. We're more worried about Koran abuse than murder most foul.
I'd guess that despite Howard Dean's best efforts, the Publicans are going to lose the next presidential election as the nation slips back into the comfortable 9-10 mode where occasional terrorism is, as John Kerry put it, an occasional irritant. So an embassy gets blown up now and then. Nobody's targeting Des Moines. We'll go through four years of Mrs. Clinton or whomever else the Dems throw up. Meanwhile, the Soddies will continue pouring money into their terror machine and the Paks will continue supplying muscle. At some point the forces of Evil will get their nuclear weapon, probably courtesy of Pak back channels or from Iran, and they'll use it as soon as they get it. Washington will be no more, possibly me with it. Then we'll have another four years of war, until the bodies are cold and long since buried and whoever's filling Britney's and Michael Jackson's and Paris Hilton's shoes ten or fifteen years from now overcomes what will and determination we possess as a nation.
For the first time since 9-11, I'm feeling pessimistic. I don't want my children and grandchildren to wear turbans. I don't want their wives to be breeding stock. In something of a mirror of Howard Dean, I'm coming to hate the Democrats and the Republican pols who're looking at polls and not at the national interest. Those, like that dipshit troll we had yesterday, who're so caught up in their Blame Bush syndrome that they can't see the danger from international Islamism disgust me. I try to keep Rantburg open to a range of opinions, but I just wish they wouldn't post here. I wish they'd go away, slither back under their rocks, never to be seen again.
I don't want to see us lose this war, but I'm coming to the conclusion that we will. Worse, I'm coming to the conclusion that we deserve to lose it. |
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